It's Beginning to Feel a lot like Christmas....

In case you haven't figured it out it is very rare for me to say no to cake. Not just because I have issues in trying to please everyone but also because I love to bake cakes. So when one of my co-workers, let's call her Aggie, asked me to bake a cake for a church function how could I resist? Last year, you may remember, I made a cake to celebrate Jesus's birthday. This year we did something a little more in the holiday spirit but still with a religious story (or should I say fable) surrounding it, and made a candy cane cake.

The fable of the candy cane talks about an Indiana candy maker who wanted to make something special to honor Christ's Birthday and made this candy white for his purity, red drops (or strips) stand for the blood he shed, and it is in the shape of a J to represent his name. Although historians have proven the story to be inaccurate, it is Christmas so why not believe?

So in the spirit of the holiday and having faith and believing, I set out to make this cake. It is a yellow butter cake, actually two to make sure we had enough to feed everyone at the church. The candy cane cake is on top of a sheet cake. They candy cane is traditional with red and white strips and if you smell hard enough you would even swear you can smell the peppermint flavoring traditional with all candy canes. When I delivered the cake everyone seemed please and ready for the annual church celebration. I must say the decor was festive with Santa's from Aggie's personal collection scattered everywhere. I know they had a great time and those children left full of faith and belief in the real meaning of the holiday.

It's a Fancy Nancy Christmas

Christmas time is one of my favorite times of the year. So when my the children's librarian asked if I could make a cake for the Fancy Nancy Christmas Party I was honored and confused. I must admit I am not up on my children's literature (actually if it is Winnie the Pooh I can fill you in on the details). Fancy Nancy, I found out thanks to a quick Internet search, is one of the hottest characters around. She is the main character for a series of books and everything she comes into contact with suddenly much fancier. When I got to the library (later than planed...thanks to a lake detour in my kitchen-fixed thanks to my talented adopted McLean family) there were still about 30 very fancy children with crowns, necklaces, and other fancy accessories. So I brought in the Christmas Tree Cake. Instead of a star on top I made a crown-just to make it fancy. I also replaced red ornaments with pink, because it seemed to be a fundamental necessity for a Fancy Nancy cake. It took mere moments to cut the cake and divide up among the fanciest of guests. As a special reward I was given the opportunity to pull the ticket for a Fancy Nancy basket. It seems as if it was a sweet day for all involved.

How Many Times Can You Celebrate One Birthday?

The answer to that question is based on your age. When you turn one hundred you can celebrate for at least three years and have as many cakes as you want. That's right we celebrated the North Carolina 4-H Centennial again. This time it was as part of the annual 4-H Youth Achievement Night in Robeson County.

The cake was actually three sheet cakes. I carved them into a one and two zeros. Each cake was also a different flavor. The one was a butter cake, one of the zero's was devil's food cake while the other was a marble cake. All were iced in white icing with green border, and confetti sprinkles across the top of each.

As part of the event the 4-H staff, State Senator Michael Walters, County Commissioner Hubert Sealey and County Extension Director Everett Davis took part in the cake cutting. The audience of 120 sang happy birthday, twice. To see photos from the special evening and learn more about the night check out the 4-H blog.

The cake seemed to go over well. When we cleaned up from the evening...there was less than one cake left, and people taking cake home with them. Congratulations 4-H!

Arghhhh! It's Birthday Time Me Maties!

Let me start by saying I often get interesting cake requests. Some of which I can do, some of which I can do some version of, some of which I can't do a darn thing with. This cake was sort of a compromise cake. Mom had called me, let's call her Jane, and asked if I could do a pirate ship cake. I thought no problem! I have a new cake pan with pirates, and it is very cute. Then Jane added the part that it was for her son's birthday. His 18th birthday. Cute and 18 don't go together. Especially when your son makes his own video games and can give you the background and history to almost every Manga character every created. Jane said his new thing was all about pirates. I said I would think of something. Now I do have a flag cake pan and could have done a pirate flag. That just seemed a little predictable. So I decided all pirates must have a sword. However there is not set cake pan for that so I was relegated to carve the cake.

Carving cake is always an interesting process. Like stone, marble or some type of hard object if you chip away too much you can't go back and replace it. However unlike those hard substances, cake tends to get crummy when you carve it. I don't mean as in crummy tasting, but cake crumbs everywhere. That can lead to a very messy decorating job. In this case with a chocolate fudge cake, it could be very very messy. I baked a 12x8 cake and carved from there. First the blade then the handle. Decorating was a little tricky but with two shades of grey a steel blade was born and I made it as ornate a sword as any pirate might have stolen. Added the birthday boy's name down the center and voila-a pirate sword cake.

I was informed that mom needed her own sword to fight off the masses until the cake was served a couple of days latter. However once it was cut...it was apparently gone. True to the pirate way of life.

Saying Thanks for the Oreos and Cheesecake.

I must admit I like to bake. I bake lots of things not just cakes (or at least decorated cakes). This year for Thanksgiving my mother and I had the privilege to share a wonderful Thanksgiving meal with another family who are friends of my mothers. To make sure we kept up our end, mom wanted to invite everyone to her house for dessert. First request from my mom, an Oreo cheesecake.

For those who like cheesecake it is great. For those who like Oreos, it is a great way to get non-cheesecake eaters to try cheesecake. For those who like both...this is heaven. However, it takes an hour to bake and overnight in the refrigerator before serving so I made this two days before Thanksgiving (knowing after driving I would not want to stay up and try to mix and bake this). I must also admit that the recipe calls for regular Oreos but I use double stuffs and I add a few more than the recipe calls for to make sure it is chalk full of the good stuff.

The cheesecake transported really well. I must admit it seemed to make our special guest pretty happy too. We had enough left over for a family gathering a night or two later and seemed to put a lot of smiles on faces. So I am thinking it kept fairly well.

Oreo is not the only cheesecake I make. There is also strawberry (second highest seller) and a chocolate chocolate Oreo cheesecake. Not to mention the regular cheesecake, Bailey's cheesecake, chocolate chip and chocolate chocolate chip cakes. If you can come up with a flavor...I will see what I can do about making it for you.

Racing to the Birthday

I know I keep saying this but I can't help it. I LOVE the people I work with. About a week ago I got a call from a very polite nice young lady whose name I should have known but could not place until she said, "I'm Christy's daughter." Oh boy did I know who she was. If you read this blog much you have read about Christy and have probably seen Amanda's graduation cake that Christy designed and I tried to incorporate into cake.

Anyhow I digress. Amanda asked if I could make a race car cake for a friends son and make the number of the car 7 since the little boy was crazy about racing. Race cars are fairly easy for me (and I have done several) so I figured yup let's go for it. Amanda even had a sample car for me to follow the color scheme. I was so excited!

I made a butter cake and got to decorating. The car had a blue roof, hood and trunk while the rest was white. I put it on a checkerboard flag background and voila. Our birthday boy's name is Hunter and where else would you put a name on a race car but on the hood.

When I got the cake to the office, photos were flying to and from cell phones and shortly before noon I got to meet our orderer in person. I must say it was a little like meeting a celebrity because I have heard so much about her (and even seen her in a commercial for Lumbee Guarantee Banks). She seemed very pleased with the cake and I hope Hunter is as well and has an unforgettable seventh birthday.

Polka-Dotted Poka-Dot

Do I enjoy what I do for a living!!! One of the main reasons is because I work with this incredible group of people. For example, one of my co-workers, let's call her Janice, was debating about getting her daughter a cake for her birthday. That doesn't sound good...let me back up a second and better explain this situation. This daughter (she has two) usually has really big birthday parties. As a matter of fact I think one of her previous cakes, for a blow out bash is on our blog. Anyhow this year she decided not to have a big party. Instead she had a few items she wanted for her birthday and she and her mother went shopping and purchased all of her gifts in advance. Being the wonderful mother Janice is, she couldn't let the big day go by without any recognition. She fretted back and forth, because she had told her daughter that by making the decision for gifts not a party there would not be a party. Of course you want to stick to your guns...but how can you not recognize the day itself?

A couple of days before Janice asked if I could do a cake for the birthday, nothing big just something for the family to celebrate. She couldn't bear the thought of her child not having some type of recognition the day of. So we talked about what would be a fun cake and we came up with the idea of the polka-dotted polka dot. Bright colors were my instructions and I went to it. I made a marble cake and did my best to round it out into a polka dotted shape. Janice seemed thrilled. So thrilled that she took it to gymnastics practice along with some mini cupcakes that she decorated around the bottom with. It wasn't long after that I got a text message that the cake was a big hit.

After I was told that although the girls enjoyed the cake there was still some left over...but there wasn't anymore. I am thinking it went home and was promptly devoured there. Hmmmmm...got to love a polka-dotted polka dot.